I like quirks and traits that are defining of a character. They should also have a positive and negative impact to them, not necessarily equally positive and negative more like 60% positive and 40% negative. I assume these are picked during character creation, and are not perks as are picked when leveling up, those should always be positive.

The Gifted trait in Fallout was great, but not really balanced well. I don't think I'd put it in a game I'd design, it's too strong.

I tend to make my "Leader" character, the character I identify with as a skill monkey. He doesn't have to be the best fighter, but he has to have all the skills.

I usually go for the traits that give +skills per level at some arbitrary
I went "Skilled" for Fallout (+skill points per level/fewer perks)

I chose Delayed Gratification in WL2, and thought it was pretty clever tricksy to for me to both be not the best fighter and to not have all the skills for the first half the game.

However, I don't think I'd choose that quirk again. My squad was already built up and specialized by the time I reached level 11, and by 15 I was already dumping points into tertiary skills, so the benefit kicked in a little too late.

Whenever I play an RPG, no matter what the genre or setting is... I play a thief.

(Damn you Garrett... you have ruined my life).

So I usually choose whatever is going to benefit a build or a playthrough that supports a skilled thief or a rogue. In the case of Wasteland 2, my native american thief was a leader and skill monkey that had the Delayed Gratification quirk, which made him effective as a smart ass, lockpicking, safecracking, demolitions infiltrator.

When it comes to backgrounds, I like to choose whatever lowest point I can be offered. For example, I am currently doing a Dragon Age: Origins playthrough as a city elf thief living in an alienage, which is just the shittiest possible scenario anyone can be at the start of that game. Why do I choose that ? Because it allows me to create an incredible arc for that character: he starts the game as an elf thief living in the slums, and finishes it as the general of an army saving the world.

• Quirks I like are ones that: 1) modify the number of skills you have, or 2) modify the number of perks you receive over time. E.g., the game defaults at 1 perk per 4 levels. So you could have an initial quirk that gives you a perk per three levels, but has a defect (like –1 skill point per level?). Or you could choose a quirk that gives you +1 skill point per level (but you only receive a perk per 5 levels.). It makes me think, and I like that.

• Don’t have the world traveler perk. This perk makes no sense. It feels magical, which contrasts with a sci-fi (sci-fantasy?) game. Maybe instead, open a toaster to find a map that reveals all the shrines, caches, or one weird location on the map. Another toaster will also do this, but for something else.

• Certain perks shouldn’t be limited to particular melee attacks. For instance, Self Defense and Slayer. I could see a brawler with ‘self defense’ perk (since there are ‘self defense’ classes that teach martial arts.), and a blade user with ‘slayer’ perk.

• Perk question: If multiple characters pick the ‘junk Diver’ perk, do they all affect the number of junk items found? Or are we just wasting a perk slot doing this? Don’t remember seeing this in the WL2 manual. Same question for: Dowsing, Camel, and Loose Change.

• Perk, (minor point): check the definition, it doesn’t mean what some people think it means. It means: 1) to become lively, cheerful, or vigorous, after depression or sickness. 2) to act, or carry oneself in a jaunty manner, 3) to put oneself forwards briskly or presumptuously. 4) To make smart, trim, or jaunty. 5) to raise smartly or briskly (“to perk up one’s head up.”). 6) perky, jaunty. 7) (slang) to percolate (as in coffee). 8) (informal) perquisite, gratuity or tip. I’m guessing you guys, through slang, assume that ‘perk’ means ‘benefits’, as in the saying “perks of the trade.” Like a tip or luxury. The word you’re looking for is ‘feat’, ‘talent’, ‘aptitude’, ‘bonus traits’, ‘maneuvers’, ‘special maneuvers’, ‘abilities’, ‘special abilities’, or ‘bonus abilities’.

• All on one page. I’d combine the ‘attributes’, ‘skill’, and ‘quirks’ onto one page. If this requires that the screen be in three sections, each with a scrolling list, that’s fine. At least combine the attributes and quirks pages because quirks often modify secondary attributes (such as how ‘brittle bones’ and ‘thick skinned’ quirks slow down that character’s combat speed.). This lets players fill in their character details in any order s/he wants.

• Why can’t we pick more than one quirk? There are pros and cons to every quirk, so why not? FO games let you pick up to two traits (quirks). I remember playing FO with a fastshot/skilled, fastshot/gifted, fastshot/kamikazi, gifted/skilled, and such combinations. Fun.

Therefore for WL3, I’d like to play a “raised by circus (clowns)/twitchy” character (both of which make me smile), or an “acetic/thick skinned” character, or a “Brittle bones/thick skinned” character (but he’d probably not be able to move in combat; ha!), or a “raised by circus/unlucky” character, or a “raised by circus/animal husbandry” character (but that might be sad: “Only animals like me.”) or an “acetic/delayed gratification” character. Or a “twitchy/two-pump chump” character, or a “raised by circus/two-pump chump” character. Or a “Heavy handed/two-pump chump” character. Or “raised by circus/manic depressive/unlucky” character (this could explain the other two quirks! Ha!). Or a “Heavy handed/ascetic/brittle bones/twitchy/raised by circus/fast shot/manic depressive/disparnumerophobia/unlucky/none” character. (Ha!)

• Perk, (minor point): check the definition, it doesn’t mean what some people think it means. It means: 1) to become lively, cheerful, or vigorous, after depression or sickness. 2) to act, or carry oneself in a jaunty manner, 3) to put oneself forwards briskly or presumptuously. 4) To make smart, trim, or jaunty. 5) to raise smartly or briskly (“to perk up one’s head up.”). 6) perky, jaunty. 7) (slang) to percolate (as in coffee). 8) (informal) perquisite, gratuity or tip. I’m guessing you guys, through slang, assume that ‘perk’ means ‘benefits’, as in the saying “perks of the trade.” Like a tip or luxury. The word you’re looking for is ‘feat’, ‘talent’, ‘aptitude’, ‘bonus traits’, ‘maneuvers’, ‘special maneuvers’, ‘abilities’, ‘special abilities’, or ‘bonus abilities’.

The game Fallout was a bit of an homage to Wasteland, and in the early builds, it was seen to not offer enough to do when the PC leveled up. Perks were invented in the game as a special bonus tweak for the character, every three [or 4] levels; it went over very well with the testers. Wasteland 2 is strangely a bit of an homage (intentional or not) to Fallout:Tactics (which also had Perks, understandably), and it's a reasonable bet that InXile used the term for historical familiarity sake.

I chose Delayed Gratification in WL2, and thought it was pretty clever tricksy to for me to both be not the best fighter and to not have all the skills for the first half the game.

However, I don't think I'd choose that quirk again. My squad was already built up and specialized by the time I reached level 11, and by 15 I was already dumping points into tertiary skills, so the benefit kicked in a little too late.

I think we played different games
with 8 intelligence and delayed gratification, I spend the whole time upgrading my 4 rangers to have all the skills
and I still had to keep two skills apart for the first high intelligence follower you find so I could keep up with the game

also, all my rangers had a close range weapon skill and a med-long range skill
because I kinda expected to be using two weapon types since myrangers don't seem to be able to move very far
strength is my way to go, managing to survive getting hit is more important to me than getting closer to whatever is trying to kill you

The game Fallout was a bit of an homage to Wasteland, and in the early builds, it was seen to not offer enough to do when the PC leveled up. Perks were invented in the game as a special bonus tweak for the character, every three [or 4] levels; it went over very well with the testers. Wasteland 2 is strangely a bit of an homage (intentional or not) to Fallout:Tactics (which also had Perks, understandably), and it's a reasonable bet that InXile used the term for historical familiarity sake.

I can't say if that is the specific reason, but yeah, ever since Fallout, RPGs have used the word "perk" to refer to what might also be called talents or abilities in other RPGs.

Personally, the reason I like "perk" is it generally means "it's good" without implying specific gameplay functionality (i.e. you don't have to call things "active" vs. "passive" abilities, and it gives us a lot of flexibility when creating the game about the types of bonuses perks offer).

I can't say if that is the specific reason, but yeah, ever since Fallout, RPGs have used the word "perk" to refer to what might also be called talents or abilities in other RPGs.

Interesting, I always saw perks as an "expansion" of the attributes and not abilities or talents per se. Still, it's cool that games in this genre have taken the word "perk" for their own. It even sounds great

I chose Delayed Gratification in WL2, and thought it was pretty clever tricksy to for me to both be not the best fighter and to not have all the skills for the first half the game.

However, I don't think I'd choose that quirk again. My squad was already built up and specialized by the time I reached level 11, and by 15 I was already dumping points into tertiary skills, so the benefit kicked in a little too late.

I think we played different games
with 8 intelligence and delayed gratification, I spend the whole time upgrading my 4 rangers to have all the skills
and I still had to keep two skills apart for the first high intelligence follower you find so I could keep up with the game

also, all my rangers had a close range weapon skill and a med-long range skill
because I kinda expected to be using two weapon types since myrangers don't seem to be able to move very far
strength is my way to go, managing to survive getting hit is more important to me than getting closer to whatever is trying to kill you

More like different playstyles. My main had no weapons skill and was running around doing healing most of the game, everyone else only had one weapon skill (less ammo micromanaging.)

I like Thick-Skinned because it allowed me to create a Ranger who can be invulnerable to most conventional weapons, which allows me to get away with murder. I also like Twitchy because it helps another one of my Rangers to run circles around enemies and hit them from distances greater than the range of their weapons. For the other two Rangers I picked Delayed Gratification, because there were no other quirks to help them with their roles. I also have plans for Psychopath and Way of the Squeezins, so I clearly prefer quirks that provide useful benefits in exchange for the drawbacks.

Manic Depressive seems inherently negative in a system where derived stats gets rounded down when not reaching certain breakpoints, and the same could be said of Disparnumerophobia if the player is willing to suffer the drawbacks. So these quirks wouldn't really help a Ranger do something as far as I can tell. And making Rangers be bad at stuff, well just put more points into Luck or Charisma (without Leadership). Or don't assign all attribute points to begin with. You don't really need quirks for that, do you? Just call that Ranger "Runt" and treat them like they're special. Classic.

Many of the quirks seem inherently bad in other ways, but at least if there is some upside that can't be achieved through the allocation of attribute points, then I guess the challenge is in finding a use for the quirk. Either some type of Ranger that would benefit, or some situation that could be turned advantageous with that quirk in play. Apparently Unlucky can let a single level 1 unskilled Ranger beat the entire game. And apparently Repressed Rage can be activated by friendly punches to the upper arm (which wouldn't hurt with enough Armor).

I could also see how a quirk that offers special interactions could be worth taking, but I don't think I've seen any of those. In Arcanum NPCs would react to barbarian armor, but anyone could wear that, and it was just that a barbarian background gave the character one from the start. Similar with the low intelligence dialogue in both Fallout 1 and 2, and Arcanum: Didn't need a quirk to be stupid. And in Fallout it was common enough to experience temporary low intelligence dialogue after a couple of doses of Psycho.

I like Thick-Skinned because it allowed me to create a Ranger who can be invulnerable to most conventional weapons, which allows me to get away with murder. I also like Twitchy because it helps another one of my Rangers to run circles around enemies and hit them from distances greater than the range of their weapons. For the other two Rangers I picked Delayed Gratification, because there were no other quirks to help them with their roles. I also have plans for Psychopath and Way of the Squeezins, so I clearly prefer quirks that provide useful benefits in exchange for the drawbacks.

Manic Depressive seems inherently negative in a system where derived stats gets rounded down when not reaching certain breakpoints, and the same could be said of Disparnumerophobia if the player is willing to suffer the drawbacks. So these quirks wouldn't really help a Ranger do something as far as I can tell. And making Rangers be bad at stuff, well just put more points into Luck or Charisma (without Leadership). Or don't assign all attribute points to begin with. You don't really need quirks for that, do you? Just call that Ranger "Runt" and treat them like they're special. Classic.

Many of the quirks seem inherently bad in other ways, but at least if there is some upside that can't be achieved through the allocation of attribute points, then I guess the challenge is in finding a use for the quirk. Either some type of Ranger that would benefit, or some situation that could be turned advantageous with that quirk in play. Apparently Unlucky can let a single level 1 unskilled Ranger beat the entire game. And apparently Repressed Rage can be activated by friendly punches to the upper arm (which wouldn't hurt with enough Armor).

I could also see how a quirk that offers special interactions could be worth taking, but I don't think I've seen any of those. In Arcanum NPCs would react to barbarian armor, but anyone could wear that, and it was just that a barbarian background gave the character one from the start. Similar with the low intelligence dialogue in both Fallout 1 and 2, and Arcanum: Didn't need a quirk to be stupid. And in Fallout it was common enough to experience temporary low intelligence dialogue after a couple of doses of Psycho.

Like many others, my favorite perks are ones that change something fundamental about the way the character or even the playthrough feels or plays. My favorite 'perk*' ever is Wild Mage in Baldur's Gate. Every spell cast has a 5% chance of misfiring or morphing into another random spell. My mage was a tragic character with a heroic nature but doomed to be mistrusted and disliked. His fellow party members, the one's who stayed friendly, knew he was misunderstood and had great sympathy for him. His condition could create hilarious or disastrous results. For example, once he changed himself into a woman and it took 2 weeks to change back. Another time, during a routine re-buffing he cast a fireball inside a crowded inn. Occasionally his wild magic saved the entire party from defeat. His intended actions were strictly good, but the party's reputation always hovered around 50% thanks to numerous accidents.

Along the same lines as Wild Mage, Fallout's jinxed trait can be hilarious.

I also like perks that give passive bonuses or extended functionality to core character/class abilities. Its cool when several of them synergize, and not necessarily in obvious ways. For example, I think most of the weapon perks in WL2 should have applied to all weapons (or at least split between ranged and melee), this would have created more opportunities for interesting builds.

*According to Merriam-Webster, one definition of perk is "improvement" and a synonym is "bonus", as in "I don't like the pay, but I stay at my job for the perks." I think this is a good word.

I've learned more about the Manic Depressive quirk now, and realised that it's a lot less random than I thought when I tried it out early on. Back when I apparently didn't know that I could check the status effects directly above the portrait instead of looking at the character screen. So it seems like Manic Depressive is a lot like Way of the Squeezins, except that instead of getting +3 Action Points and +25% damage for 90 seconds after drinking a Snake Squeezin, the Ranger has a 50% chance of +3 Combat Initiative for 600-900 seconds, with a 25% chance of +3 Action Points. Which in theory seems like it could be useful. At least when excellence is required, and a Combat Initiative that is decent just isn't good enough, so nothing is really lost if the Ranger gets -3 Combat Initiative half the time, and -2 Action points 25% of the time.

Obnoxious - Manic Depressive. Sounds like a laugh until your strength drops and suddenly you can't move. Maybe don't mess with strength (doesn't really make sense to have physical stats change).
Dispar bla bla: Power gamer exploit (level up every other level)

All others very good and add flavor to characters. NPCs should definitely have them if appropriate (why didn't Scotchmo have Way of the Squeezins?!)

Perks:
I won't go perk by perk but in general you should maybe look at a perk rebalance when 'everyone' says 'Tinkerer' is a mandatory perk with such a minimal investment required, etc. Maybe Tinkerer only works for the first round or two of combat?
Then you have perks nobody takes like the 'worldmap' perks like Scout, Explorer, World Traveler. You need to power those up, or have them help roleplaying too like taking on the role of a 'lore' skill, or help you find 'special' encounters only available with these perks, etc.